Make Something Invisible Visible

The following is an attempt to document learning and to make something invisible visible. It is meant as a demonstration of “The Power of Twitter” . I am trying to make this potential visible for a group of teachers at the German School in Buenos Aires, which I am coaching this year.

After our group video conference/webinar about Twitter yesterday, I wanted to make the power of Twitter and of having a Personal Learning Network (PLN) more visible to you.

Paul Kesselring, the young student from German, who we conected to via Skype during our week in March together in Buenos Aires, shared a tweet about the power of Twitter, when he announced that through our virtual contact, he will be given the opportunity of an internship at the Goethe Schule.

This morning, I read a blog post by Verónica. She observed and reflected on her students’ independent thinking skills. This prompted me to ask my PLN on Twitter the following:

I wanted to know how other educators were dealing with some of the same issues with their students and these questions? Being geographically aware, I noted that responses were coming in from Kate y Hayley (from Australia), Beth, Chris & Sara (from the USA) and Hannah (from Qatar), Lukas, Kate (could not pinpoint their country location)

Note, as well, the hashtags that were added in some of their responses to not only diseminate this request to their own followers, but to the followers to a given hashtag.

Another example:

I had the first 1:1 coaching video conference with Alejandra yesterday. We spoke about her plans to create a classroom blog for the parents of her Kindergarten/Preschool class. What could she document to share with parents?

Today I sent out a tweet to ask, if anyone could share links to more Kindergarten blog examples

Again, my PLN did not fail and responses started to come in. This time with links, but also with recommendations of what other #hashtags to search to learn about more resources and examples.

I only shared a few examples from the past 24 hours. It is fascinating to also think, that the respnses and answers to the questions I posed in the tweets, will continue to come in from my followers from around the world, as they are waking up in different time zones or depending on their established Twitter reading routines

My question to all of you is : What do you think of all of this? What is your understanding (just having been introduced to Twitter) of this web of communication, the virtual paths of information and the different types of connecting with others around the world to ask questions and learn together. Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Silvia Tolisano is a Curriculum21 faculty member, author of the book Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project. Read more at http://langwitches.org/blog.

This type of crowdsourced-selfie-activity is a great way to have students participate in summarizing their learning, make a prediction, make it visible (you could use a Visible Thinking Routine, ex. CSI), or as an exit ticket.

Together with Edna Sackson, the Teaching and Learning Co-ordinator of the school, we planned the overall theme, Documenting FOR Learning, of the intense week to connect with the whole school goal of using data to inform learning.